1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to conferencing and more particularly to systems and methods of audio teleconferencing. Even more particularly, embodiments according to the present invention relate to audio conferencing via telephone and computer, using the traditional plain old telephone system (POTS) and/or Internet-based connections.
2. Background
Conference calling has been offered as a telecommunications service for some time. As prices have dropped it has become increasingly popular and is now used by businesses and some consumers on a regular basis for local, national, and global virtual meetings. Participants typically dial into a conference “bridge”—a specialized system either within the telephone network or connected to it. Modern bridges can support large numbers of callers segregated into multiple conferences. The participants enter digits via the telephone dial pad to identify the conference they wish to join. Once established, the system computes and sends to each participant the merged audio of the other participants.
In addition to connections over the conventional telephone network (i.e., public—switched telephone network (PSTN or POTS), an increasing number of “telephone calls” are made over the Internet. These calls are made with special Internet telephones, with adapters that interface traditional phones to the Internet, or with Internet-connected personal computers augmented with headsets and special software. Often these endpoints are able to dial traditional telephone network numbers, in which case they usually can be used to access the conference bridges just described, again sending DTMF digits to enter a particular conference.
Some conference systems offer a “dial out” capability, rather than requiring each participant to dial in. In this case, for a given conference, the organizer enters into the system a list of participant telephone numbers, and the system calls each one. Once a connection is made, the participant is added to the conference.
Today, most conference systems are completely automated, but early systems required an operator. The operator would greet each caller and ask for the caller's name and the name of the conference they wished to join. After checking an attendee list, the operator would announce the new participant and place the caller into the desired conference.
Earlier conferencing systems also often used call bridging hardware of limited capacity. Facilities had to be reserved in advance, and a given bridging resource would often have a specific access telephone number assigned to it, which all participants would dial. An additional “access code” would be issued to restrict the bridge to only those callers that could provide the correct code, which would change each time a new conference session was initiated.
Modern automated conference systems typically have a large pool of bridging resources accessed by a single telephone number. The systems assign conference ID codes when a conference is scheduled, usually via a Web interface. Many systems allow individual users to sign up for a unique, permanent ID code, which becomes their personal “conference room.” An individual planning to host a conference need only distribute his code to the invited participants and tell them to call in at a specified time. This information is most frequently distributed via electronic mail (E-mail). Participants in a particular conference then dial into the bridge concurrently and enter the same ID code to get placed into a common conference. This is convenient for someone that hosts conferences frequently; they need only memorize their specific code. However, for an individual who attends many conferences with different hosts, they must be sure to use the right code for the specific conference at the appropriate time.
While conferencing systems have become increasingly automated and feature-rich, they generally still require access codes entered by the participants. As noted, some systems use these codes to identify which conference the caller wishes to enter; others use them to authenticate the caller (making sure that only authorized parties gain access to the conference), and sometimes the codes serve multiple purposes. Codes are often misplaced, forgotten, or entered incorrectly, and individuals that participate in several conferences per day or week are routinely frustrated trying to manage the information specific to each conference.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,330,320, issued to Cornell, et al. on Dec. 11, 2001 suggests an approach where a conferencing system is provided by a carrier (e.g., AT&T) within the carrier's network (i.e., “in network”). The conference organizer (host) provides the conferencing network, in advance, with additional information about a conference. The information provided by the organizer can be used to authenticate the participants, relieving them of the obligation to enter a conference access code. The advance information is also used to route the call to the appropriate bridge location within the network. In addition to the conferencing system being incorporated within a carrier's network, the conferencing invention described in the '320 patent has no knowledge of the conference schedule and does not reconcile calls from participants invited to several different conferences.
In their Patent Application 2005/0276406, Keohane et al. describe a system that allows a conference organizer to register with a conferencing system a list of participants and their phone numbers and establish a schedule for calling them into a conference. This approach also can obviate the need for participants to remember access codes. However, it requires that each participant “register” with the conference system for each conference call in advance in order to realize the benefits of the invention; those that do not register and instead dial into the conference must still manage access codes. Similarly to Cornell et al., it does not provide for reconciliation of participants invited to participate in a plurality of conference calls that overlap or occur concurrently.
Therefore, what is needed are conferencing systems and methods that overcome challenges present in the art, some of which are described above.